Bernard Loomis, 82, Toy Marketer

Bernard Loomis, a legendary toy marketer dubbed "the man who invented Saturday morning," died of heart disease Friday at his home in Palm Beach Gardens. He was 82.

In the volatile world of toy sales, Mr. Loomis had an unmatched record of marketing best-selling toys from the late 1950s to the 1990s. He introduced the Hot Wheels action cars as characters in a television show. When the first Star Wars movie became a surprise hit, he sold empty boxes during the Christmas season with the promise to deliver the toys later, in effect creating a futures market for toys.

"He has been associated with the largest toy company in the world, at the moment it became the largest toy company, on three separate occasions," David Owen wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in 1986. "Almost every time the industry has taken a major, controversial step in the past twenty-five years, Loomis has been in the neighborhood."

He conceived of the Strawberry Shortcakes as dolls, greeting cards and a made-for-television movie. He licensed and sold action figures that included the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman and Baby Alive, which when fed a special formula required a diaper change.

He managed flops, too. Steve Scout, the official doll of the Boy Scouts of America, and Duke the Wonder Dog never found much of a market. But the failures never bothered him.

Mr. Loomis, who had a highly animated demeanor, loved to play. His desk was covered with action figures. He also watched Saturday morning television, although his children didn't, said one of his daughters, Merrill Nan Loomis.

Born into poverty in the Bronx, N.Y., Mr. Loomis had no toys as a child, but he created a baseball game out of a deck of cards and memorized the Lionel train catalogue.

He served with the Army Air Forces in the Philippines during World War II, then returned to New York and attended New York University. During the 1950s, he worked at a hardware store and then as a salesman for a toymaker before he joining Mattel when it was still small.

"Prior to Mattel, there were no branded toys," Mr. Loomis told Robert Spector, author of Category Killers: The Retail Revolution and Its Impact on Consumer Culture. "The business at that point was oriented to a few major retailers, like Sears. Sears buyers ran the world."

But when Mattel began advertising on television, the retailers' power was broken. TV expanded the market for toys, which resulted in lower prices for shoppers and narrower profit margins.

General Mills' toy group, with Mr. Loomis at the helm, surpassed Mattel as the world's largest and most profitable toy company. By 1984, he started a joint venture with Hasbro and served as consultant to that firm as it rose to the top of the industry. He operated his own business consulting group starting in 1988 and with his daughter Merrill launched another successful series, Quints dolls and accessories, with Tyco.

The past president of the Toy Manufacturers of America, he was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1992.

In addition to his daughter Merrill of Napa, Calif., survivors include his wife of 59 years, Lillian Prince Loomis, of Palm Beach Gardens; another daughter, Debra Jan Loomis of Middletown, Calif.; and two grandchildren.